Disillusion
by taranoire
Summary: The fuhrer and his wife do not lead a perfect existence.
1. A Quaint Biography

Rumor spread and softened the public like melted butter, dripping quietly through every variety of social circle. Central's denizens could be heard, quite frequently, speaking of their fuhrer and his demure bride—the bodyguard and matron who could brew tea, speak competitively, and shoot a man without ruffling her pleated skirt.

They were fascinated by her because few had ever really seen her. Not she who had become sole indication of their leader's humanity, not she who could melt the frosty chill of his strong heart. The fuhrer was a capable ruler—he had, in just eight years, developed a prosperous relationship with Xing and its newly crowned emperor. He had created a parliament and revolutionized the state alchemy examinations. But he exuded a soullessness, comparable to the homunculi he had slaughtered years earlier.

If the prime minister or some foreign dignitary visited the fuhrer's estate, they would be assailed at the gates by mobs of crowding faces. Was it true? the people asked, bunching and scrabbling for warmer coats. That the fuhrer and his wife slept in separate bedrooms? That they barely spoke a word? That on some cold, tumultuous nights, a frenzied blond woman would stand on the third-floor balcony, masquerading as a hunter and sniping at pigeons that crowded the yard?

No, no, the dignitaries said; the fuhrer and his wife are content. Their principles guide them. Let us quash these rumors of intimacy problems: why, I have it on good word that they are attempting to produce an heir.

Wherever Fuhrer Mustang went, his bride would go, a chiffon scarf about her head and a rifle at her back. She acted as his chauffeur, guide, protector, caretaker. She booked their transportation, meetings, and lodging; she ensured he ate properly, she picked up dropped articles, and said little to anyone. Not even to him.

And in return, he exuded possessiveness. Should the press ask about her, he would treat her as a myth, or a detail too insignificant for discourse. If threats were made towards her, through letter or through spoken word, he quietly promised retribution so violent it would shake the world into a void darker than Truth.

If it were not for the marriage certificate in the public records, Amestris would never know they were a couple. It had been a quiet ceremony, according to former friends neglected in the storms of politics; they had both worn black, had held hands only briefly, not even giving those present the dignity of a sealing kiss. The fuhrer and his wife did not show their love or parade it around like a luxury vehicle. They were not comfortable with that.

One warm winter day, Fuhrer Mustang made his first personal announcement: his bride was with child.

Celebration and warm smiles faded into somber dust, and on a cold spring afternoon, the stalwart couple remained even as the last shovel of soil was deposited on a three-foot grave. They wore black. A netted veil hung low over her face. He had draped his arm across her shoulders tepidly, as if afraid of even that closeness. He was frightened that he would break her, as her womb had broken their greatest creation.

Seasons passed. Wars broke, and were repaired. Parliament had its scandals. The economy winded down, and with delicate precision, the government fed it until it could sustain itself again. And one year, looking down from the library window of his estate, Fuhrer Mustang surveyed the sun's light on his city. And he said: "It is finished."

They were executed, after a short trial, on the grounds of criminal indecency during the Ishballan rebellion of 1909.

They wore white.


	2. Degraded Silver

Riza Hawkeye, the fuhrer's misty-eyed wife, currently attended to her expected duty of hosting one of the many provincial governors of Amestris. He was a tall, quiet man, much younger than the other governors who stayed at the mansion, but Mrs. Hawkeye did not bat any lashes. She was well-acquainted with young, handsome dignitaries, with the prodigal, with the overachieving; her own husband had trod the same path.

She poured him a cup of tea, delicately, the bright light of midday streaming through the lacy parlor curtains and refracting off of fine china. The governor was polite, for the most part, and patient. Most governors would have demanded the fuhrer's presence by now, spoiled by their previous careers as generals. Amestris' democratic, parliamentary form of government was an improvement, yes, but there were still side effects of militarism.

"You must be quite proud," the governor said, sipping his tea, looking quietly off at Central's skyline, which bloomed from the renewed commercial sector. "Your husband has done wonders."

She flinched involuntarily; she thought of Roy Mustang as _sir_, as _colonel_, as _Roy_, not 'husband.' That title was too intimate, spoke of a relationship that they simply didn't have. They loved each other, but it was a love born from necessity and grief and circumstance. They hardly _chose_ one another, after all. She knew she certainly hadn't.

It was the better decision, diplomatically.

"I wouldn't say I'm proud," she said cautiously, neglecting her own black, unsweetened tea. She glanced at a decadent painting on the wall, admiring the brushwork—anything to distract herself from the personal slant of this conversation. "Any decent man would do what he has. The difference is that he has the intelligence and the capability with which to do it."

"Are you not grateful?" The question was not phrased interrogatively, but to Hawkeye it felt like a slap in the face.

"I am grateful that change has been made," she said. "To commend him or honor him for it is despicable, and not something he would want. Nor would I want it. You see, governor, we are merely tools of the people, and we are paying a grievous debt. If we stop, even once, to congratulate our efforts, it would be an insult to those whose lives we have destroyed in the process."

She took a hesitant ship of her tea, looking off to the side; she wasn't sure where that had come from.

"You've redeemed yourselves," the governor said, ignorance a twinkle in his eye. "Anyone can see that. You've been through hell and back—you deserve a break, you deserve this peace."

To be perfectly honest, she hated it—the attention, the glory, the fame, the nature of the public's fascination with them. The people rallied around them, spoke of their past with admiration and love and forgiveness, as if the death toll numbers were inconsequential compared to the star-crossed affection she and Roy Mustang had found in each other's arms.

Did they not see, or not understand? Behind every statistic, there was a face and a name and a heartbeat. She could remember telling herself that she was not a murderer, not really, because the victims she claimed were often too far to see properly. She could not smell their fear, hear their thoughts as life drained out of them into desert sand; but that had been a lie, because she sought them out.

Stalked them like a bird of prey.

She had carefully monitored the activity during night, knowing that Ishballan children liked to play in the safety of darkness—what better way to pick off a few easy targets? She had looked for areas of high in-and-out traffic, often exposing dens of refugees that Roy could exterminate in oily, smelly bonfires. She remembered those _screams_, for certain; remembered ripping toys, rings, personal effects from civilian bodies before her colonel burned them alive in tight, dark cement rooms.

Those effects, she kept and sold; some soldiers gave them as gifts to their wives, or girls back home.

She remembered that over time, the revelation of taking a life (a life, a person, a consciousness—someone who loved and were loved just as strongly as she) numbed and cooled into a statistician's awareness. She counted—made a game of it. Laughed. Let's see if I can hit this one in the knee—fifty cenz. Head shot, one hundred cenz.

So, no. She wasn't grateful. She wasn't proud.

And she wasn't going to be looked up to or admired—she could not, would not, tolerate that.

When her husba—_colonel_ finally made his presence known, dressed in a fine suit and spritzed with cologne, she alone took notice of the dark circles beneath his eyes, of the steady back-and-forth of thumb and forefinger. A twitch, a nervous habit.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," Fuhrer Mustang said, taking a seat in front of the governor after the proprieties of handshakes and introductions were over. He didn't make small talk, did not give any excuse for his absence. He was business-like, entirely proper, serious in demeanor. Private.

"It's fine," the governor said. "Your wife makes a fine pot of tea."

Mustang flinched, probably due to the words 'your wife,' but Riza alone (too used to observing fine details from afar) could discern this. They were more alike than was probably healthy, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.


	3. Persephone

**Warnings**: Gore. Stream of consciousness. Dreamlike.

Hot, dark room submerged in soil. Quiet. Whisper. The heat of desert air on her skin. She undressed herself. The sink, full of grimy rags and dripping rust; lukewarm water in the fingerprint. Muffled moans. A clatter. Fallen chair and broken bones. She pulled the trigger. Air compressed. Bullet struck. Kneecap shattered.

She apologized, naked form itchy in the arid dust. The grit clung to moisture. Any moisture. It burned. "My condolences," she whispered to the hazy figure, broken, bloody, half-bound to an old rotting chair resting on its side. It was ageless. No gender. An it. She congratulated her aim. "I am _so_ sorry for your pain."

Shot her-him-it again, carpal, tarsal, mandible, cranium, until the soggy splintered corpse creaked under the weight of its own flesh. Every wound a wound by her hand, a wound gifted to child, infant, man, and wife. She did not discriminate. A noble lady indeed.

She felt strong arms wrap around her waist. The scent of metal, rot, oily hair. Those hands steadied her grip. Improved her accuracy. Whispered encouragement in her pretty ears. "Why do you always hold yourself back?" Kimbley said. "Your lips say no but your eyes say yes, yes, yes. You like to watch them drop like flies. You like that rush and that boom and that drop, that thump, that squish of a body emptying."

She blinked at the captive figure, watching as it morphed (inhuman, it was not human-she was no murderer) into the faceless, racist caricatures of middle-eastern flesh. These were not people, no, no; they were bags of blood and teeth. She shot it in the mouth and the hole left by close-contact bullet was darker than black, blood so thick-so-thick-so-thick it must have been a monster.

"Beautiful soldier," Kimbley rasped, smirking in the half-light of nuclear winter, "why the hell do you think it matters if you're sorry you killed someone? No matter what your intentions, they're still dead and you'll never stop killing. Gets much easier after bullet one, doesn't it?"

Bullet one.

Eleven-year-old. Could have been a brilliant man some day. Hiding books in the basement of an old house. Looked up, unafraid; who would kill a child? Papa said _splat_. Riza Hawkeye had teared up (in the shadows, in privacy) out of grief for her lack of remorse.

A different culture, a different face, a difference skin color, a different religion, a different language; alien. Not human.

When did he change faces?

"You tell me if it hurts," Roy said to her from behind, licking his lips as a nervous sweat beaded. He was a virgin and clumsy and tired and so horrified by his nights asleep that he would do anything for the tingle of human pleasure. Touching yourself was good, good, good, so being with someone real must have been ten times better. Yes?

She had volunteered for this. She had volunteered to pull this trigger, and get him off. That was her role as woman, as protector, as the wife of carnal sin. "It doesn't hurt," she said, his fingers inside her; the blood on his fingers had not congealed, not yet. She sat astride the corpse's lap (its body hot, and dry, and composed of primal ash; her darling Mustang had gotten to him as she prepared for this night) and spread her legs wide.

Her hole black, black, black, just as the wound in her victim's skull. She saw Roy avert his eyes, and knew he was thinking the same thing; all that blood. "It's okay," she said. "I can feel nothing." She had gone numb all over, chilled gooseflesh rising. She felt like a plucked bird, skin cold, wet, smelling of death and meat.

"Burn me."

He obeyed, and there was a liquid flash, like sunlight through the ocean, scattered by a trillion salty droplets, and she was breathing hard and hot and blood streaked her hair her legs her back he groaned (so good so good so good). And she thought: sex and death are not so very different. We breathe, we struggle, we give in, we are primal, we are vulnerable. And then there is a final rush, a damp chill, and then nothing; almost as if there was nothing to start with.

That first bullet was always the easiest.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.


End file.
